by Band Back Together | Nov 23, 2010 | Abuse, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Emotional Abuse, How To Help With Low Self-Esteem, Infidelity, Loneliness, Psychological Manipulation, Self Loathing, Self-Esteem, Shame, Sociopathy, Stress, Trauma |
I’m planning on leaving my husband.
I’m running away.
Last night, after an especially bad fight, I was talking to one of my best friends. I told him what the fight was about (husband got upset at me because I was on my phone while he was asleep) and I told him that it’s my fault, because I’m such a bad wife.
My friend got mad at me. I mean, really angry, and I couldn’t understand why. He told me to search the term BWS. He said that he thinks that I have battered woman syndrome. But you see, it’s rare that my husband actually hits me. Generally he just throws verbal punches.
Since the day we met, something about this man has made me bend over backwards for him. I let go of long time friends (because he didn’t like them), I turned my back on family (because he said that he was my family now), I missed my little brother’s funeral (he thought it would be a bad idea for me to go back home by myself and wouldn’t take me).
He screamed at me and told me I was worthless, and I cried and begged him to give me another chance, because I CAN BE BETTER.
Let me give you some background information on me. Up until I met my husband my friends called me CK, or Cowboy Killer. I had a bad reputation for taking a man and turning him inside out.
Not because I was mean, because I wouldn’t be. But because they all usually told me they loved me within a week or two and then I’d have to let them go. CK rule # 1 is don’t get attached to me. Rule # 2 is I don’t take shit so back the eff off. So when my friends saw the little things that he started off doing to me, they were baffled.
To say the least, I’ve let this man run my life. Deep down there is a little voice in my cold empty heart that says that he is wrong and bad.
But everything else inside of me screams that this is my fault. After he hits me, he says things like “I didn’t hit you that hard, you must bruise easily” or “I didn’t push you that hard, you threw yourself” or “Baby I’m sorry, but you just shouldn’t push me like that”.
A few months ago he put me in the hospital because I said “I hate you” after I found out that he was cheating on me, again.
But the making up… I live for the making up. He is so sweet, and he tells me that I’m beautiful and he loves me and that he’ll change. He asks me to just stick it out, because he knows that he can be better. But a week later it’s back and worse than ever.
When he broke my nose last month another good friend offered to pay for me and my children to move back up north (my homeland) and live with him. He offered me a job in his company and a safe place for my kids and I to live, complete with 2 puppies and a fenced in back yard. I told him at the time that I would think about it.
Last night I did a lot of thinking. And a lot of web searching. Did you know that my husband matches almost every single sign of being a sociopath?
Manipulation? Check. This is the same man that says I force him to treat me this way because of the things I do, like buy myself a coffee with my money.
Lack of remorse? Yeah, we already went over that one.
Poor behavioral controls resulting in acts of rage? Mmhmm.
Promiscuity? LOLZ. This is the same man who has NO IDEA how many women he’s slept with. Since we started dating I know of at least 8.
Parasitic lifestyle? If you’ve read any of my other entries here on BB2G you would know that for the last two years I’ve supported him financially.
Apparently the sociopath’s main goal in life is to create a willing victim. That’s been me for two years. And I think I’m done. I sent an email to my friend, asking if I could still come up. I won’t tell my husband.
But I’m scared. I’m scared of taking my kids up to PA and worrying about whether I can support them. I’m scared that I won’t be strong enough to say no when my husband begs me to come home. I’m scared that all of this is in my head, and maybe I am the crazy one. I’m scared that he’ll find us.
But it’s what I have to do, right?
Because I can’t continue to live this way, right?
*On a side note, thank you all, for being the people that you are. Sometimes I just read over the comments that you leave and I cry and wish that I had people like you actually in my life. Thank you for trying to help me see the bright side, and for telling me that it will get better. A million times over, thank you…
Prankster, there’s no such thing as “abuse light” or “a little abuse.” Your husband is abusive. That’s not a question. The question is, “do you want to take it?”
You know that the answer is no. You don’t deserve it. Nobody deserves to be treated like that. Nobody.
You are loved. We will be here for you no matter what.
Whatever you do, please be safe. PLEASE.
by Band Back Together | Nov 17, 2010 | Abuse, Addiction, Alcohol Addiction, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Coping With Divorce, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Divorce, Domestic Abuse, Economic Abuse, Estrangement |
I am forty-three years old – an Interior Designer who has done well for herself over the course of sixteen years. I married thirteen years ago and have four beautiful children. My husband has had a series of losses in his life which turned him into a raging drunk, drug user and abuser (emotionally and physically towards the children and I).
After a series of abusive situations involving the children, I finally made my way to the attorney’s office and filed for divorce. Was that the right thing? I have been nothing but punished since that day in July 2009.
He destroyed the business I have had for seventeen years. He took all the money I had to support me and the children. He stole from the house and took all the money in our accounts.
He has not only hit me a few times, but he hit the children to the point that child services got involved. After they interviewed the children, they told me I would be charged for never turning in all these abuses in the past year. The children and I are all in counseling.
My first attorney did everything wrong, My second attorney took what money I had left and dumped me because I couldn’t pay any more. A guardian ad litem was finally appointed to our family and I had to pay for that out of the investments I had left. She actually believed him and never interviewed half my witnesses. She also never talked to the boys. Then, I was sent to another attorney (a third one) who said he would finish up the divorce for a flat rate. Well, I can’t come up with the rest of the money. He and my -soon-to-be ex’s attorney seem friendly and I feel like I am just getting screwed.
The worst part about all this is that the children are so messed up from the divorce and the abuse they suffered from their father. I have done everything I can to protect them but the Florida courts don’t seem to care.
We are getting ready for trial now and I can’t seem to get anyone to understand how bad this is for me and my children.
They hide in their rooms when he comes to get them.
My nine-year old ran nine blocks away and called me from a gas station because she was afraid to be with her dad.
My four-year old has seen his father throw me up against my desk and hold my head down as he threatened me. He nearly drowned at his cousin’s house and his father was nowhere to be found.
On his second birthday, he took my son out of his car seat because he was crying and stuck him out the window as I was driving down the highway.
My six-year old keeps getting thrown into walls by his father, his dad calls him pussy boy and tells him he cries like a school girl.
He makes him sleep on a sofa at his house to punish him for his mother filing for divorce.
My eleven-year old is pulling out her eyelashes and eyebrows.
Where am I to turn? I don’t know how to get people to understand what is going on and change this for my children.
I bought my house when I was single and have fixed it up, paid the mortgage on it for eleven of the fourteen years I’ve owned it.
In 2004, I walked into my house to find a lender and a lady sitting there because he wanted to refinance the house. I was stupid and signed the papers not really knowing how bad I was going to be screwed – until now, when I can’t afford food, let alone the house. I am about to be forced out onto the streets.
His attorney is trying to get me out of the house so he can move in. The only reason I would do this is for my children so I know they have a bed to sleep in and a roof over their head, but in the process I have nothing.
No money, no place to live, no support and an attorney who told me to marry better next time. My whole family lives up north and the few friends I have here have their own problems.
I never thought this would be happening to me.
I have gone to the courthouse for help with the abuse center. They can’t help me and just send me to the shelter. I can’t find a job and am so confused. I can’t figure out what is going on.
I guess I don’t know what to do at this point. I have tried everything I can except to just take the children and run away. Believe me, I have thought about this so much, but what kind of life is that for them? What if I got caught and then can never see them again?
Do I just give him the kids and walk away? I know that would kill me. I can sleep in my Suburban for a while, but since I can’t secure a place to live because he ruined my credit and took all our money, I will lose the children anyway.
I am a rat stuck in a very bad situation. Crying is not helping me out of this giant mess. Where did the strong business person go? Why can’t I get anyone to understand that I divorced this ass to make my children’s lives better? Where do I go from here?
How do my children survive this nightmare?
by Band Back Together | Nov 16, 2010 | Abuse, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Child Abuse, Child Sexual Abuse, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Domestic Abuse |
It started with words. Yelling, angry words he slung at her for being lazy, or slow, or a bad cook. She’d just apologize and go on with life. Then he yelled at me, and she wouldn’t stand for it; she’d step in, and up, like she never did for herself. That’s when he started hitting her. I didn’t even know it was odd until I was older, and observed the parents of friends who never hit. By that time, it was ingrained; my stepfather hit, and that was just… life. I don’t know if my mother knew he started hitting me. I played sports, had bruises, a few fractures. Even my pediatrician never suspected abuse.
If it had stopped at hitting, I probably wouldn’t be so messed up. But when I was 8, everything changed. I was beginning to develop; their marriage was cooling off – they rarely even spoke. And he started looking at me differently. High on pain pills for some imaginary back spasm he used to get sympathy from his family – and drugs from his doctor – he came to my room one night, held a hand over my mouth, and touched me. I was lucky; he was flying so high that when he went to take his clothes off, I ran for the bathroom and locked myself in.
He couldn’t exactly break the door down without waking my mother, so he stood by the door and told me all the terrible things he’d do to me, to my mother, if I ever breathed a word. I believe he meant it, even to this day. So I never said anything, and by grace of some higher power, he never tried again. From that day on, I slept with a knife under my mattress, and told my mother I wanted to make my own bed. I learned to climb out my window in 30 seconds, found a neighbor who would take me in at any hour, for any reason, and kept a bag of clothes and a pair of old shoes stashed in a hidey-hole by the side of the house.
I learned what no child should have to. I lived for two years past that awful night in the same house with him, terrified that I would have to use my escape route and leave my mother behind to face him alone. My only solace was that neighbor, whose daughters loved me like a sister, and who slept next to a 12 gauge shotgun. I’m thankful every day that I never had to ask him to go rescue my mother from a maniac.
That’s the beginning of my story, but it isn’t the end. I’ve posted other pieces of my life elsewhere on this site, and on others… in comments, in my own posts. But what I’ve always failed to include, even when I’ve posted my “epilogue” is the Darkness. And yes, it deserves that capital D. It’s frighteningly close to the surface at times. That beginning shaped my life; the good, I’m a survivor and always will be, the bad, I am quick to draw blood, to use violence instead of words or distance.
I have three children. I love them with everything that I am, and more if it’s possible. I am so, so careful to keep them away from that part of me, but I’m still scared. The part of me that’s cautious of people, of situations, quick to react and deadly when I do, has literally kept me alive. But that same part of me could destroy the people I love. I’ve often heard new mothers being told, “If you can’t handle it, if it just gets too overwhelming, put the baby in a safe place and walk away to cool down.” I’ve had to do this more times than I want to admit, and not just during the infant stage.
My older two are only a year apart — god the stress of that! — and at nearly 5 and nearly 4, they are a handful. Any children of those ages would be, of course. But my oldest is intelligent; so intelligent that at times I’m frightened by how quickly she picks things up. I wonder if she’ll out-pace her ability to comprehend what she’s taking in. My middle child is different. Exactly how we don’t yet know, but I’ve seen these neon signs before. I know what they mean. Autism Spectrum Disorder. High-functioning, certainly, and thank god for that, but still… a challenge. I double-stack baby gates in their doorway to keep them in their room when I feel the Darkness crawling to the surface and I just can’t handle any more. I know this isn’t a terrible thing. They are fed, hydrated, clean, overflowing with toys and even a TV with a DVD player because they, like their Nana, love Disney movies. They are never ignored, but sometimes… sometimes Mommy needs a break from the go-go-go of two toddlers-turned-preschoolers. And I feel horrible. But I would feel worse if I let my Darkness get the better of me, I know that. Better to be safe in their room, cared for and dealt with at a distance than to become easy targets for my frustration. But still I feel like the worst mother in the world.
And now there’s the baby. Not so little anymore — 9 months now, goodness — but still so dependent on Mommy. I wanted her so, so very badly, and I don’t regret having her, not even the timing of it, so close to the others. I just get overwhelmed. So she goes in her nice, safe crib with a brightly-colored baby book to distract her while Mommy has a breather. It’s certainly not the worst thing in the world, and yet? Bad Mommy. I know it isn’t true, but that’s how I feel, because my own little babies should never make me so angry they bring out the Darkness. But after the thirty-millionth time of hearing, “Mommy, I’m hungry.” and “I wanna watch a movie!” and “Sissy’s hitting meeeeee…” and “Wahhhh! Wahhh! WAHHHHHH!” in the last hour, I just want to put my hand through a wall. I never, ever want them to see me lose it that way. It would scare them, scar them perhaps, and I love them too much to do that.
I rarely take people at their word. I always look for hidden meanings, reasons to get up in arms. Why? Because if I spot the attack before it happens, I have an edge. It’s like the abused wife who looks and listens and knows the instant before her husband is going to throw that first punch that she better duck. It’s a life-saving reflex that has no place in common conversation. But it’s there. I can’t make it go away. Ironically, I feel safer around men. Women scheme and connive; they are masters at smiling to your face and stabbing you in the back, and that scares me. If I can see the attack coming, I can prepare. I don’t like being blindsided. I can read men, I’m used to doing so, so they’re safer. But even with men, I’m careful.
I still sleep with a knife beside the bed. I take my cell phone with me to bed, too, just in case. I listen for noises in the night. I hate sleeping when it’s bright out because the sunlight makes it hard to fall asleep or stay that way, but I prefer it because the Monsters generally prefer the dark for their sport. Sleeping, I’m easy prey, but awake, I’m much harder to fell. I have nightmares about people invading my home, waking nightmares sometimes, when I try to fall asleep at night. I am still afraid to let my children sleep in their own room for fear of not being able to protect them should I need to. It’s that scared little 8-year-old coming out, waiting for “Daddy” to creep into her room. Every sound in the night that I don’t immediately recognize is a shiver of terror down my spine.
I’ve spoken to counselors, taken meds, but it never helps. Precisely because people can’t be trusted, and the drugs make me not me anymore. I can’t even recognize the person in the mirror and that might just scare me worse than the nightmares. This is a Darkness bred into me from childhood, reinforced through a lifetime of hardness, that cannot simply be erased. I must learn to live with it, to cope. And I hope (god I hope) that acknowledging it here helps.
by Band Back Together | Oct 25, 2010 | Abuse, Child Abuse, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Forgiveness, Happiness, Helping Someone In An Abusive Relationship, Hope, Psychological Manipulation, Self Loathing, Shame, Stress, Trauma |
Sometimes the only monster we see is when we’re looking into a mirror.
This is her story:
I was controlled by a destructive, angry individual who did everything in their power to destroy the very core of my being.
The sad part is that I allowed it, and not only for a little while … oh no … I allowed this person to eat at me every single day … all day … for years, until there was nothing left but a shell of my former existence. They were mean and hurtful, yelled at my children, they could have cared less about my happiness … their main goal was to make me and everyone around me pay for their misery. They let their selfish need for pride crumble the walls of my life … I was sure there was no way to rid myself of this person … I was trapped … the very thought of ending the darkness they brought was unfathomable.
Murder.
I could simply just kill them.
The thought crossed my mind on more than one occasion … but what little common sense I had left stopped whatever notions that crept into my mind.
To escape this person was to escape my very self.
I was her … she was me, and deep down in her head, buried under the anger and depression was a tiny flicker of light that called out to her … “don’t drive your car off the road … you know better than that.”
The problem was that no matter how deep I analyzed myself, I could come up with not one valid reason to feel this way. What was wrong with me? … why was I spiraling into a hole? What was my problem?
Was it a learned behavior? … it was possible.
Was it genetic? … that was quite possible as well.
One morning I woke up and opened the refrigerator … a tub of margarine fell out and you’d think the world had just ended. My ranting and yelling and crying over something so trivial was ridiculous. Kind of like when my Dad didn’t have enough milk for his cereal in the morning … off he’d go to the store … tires screeching down the driveway … he couldn’t just have a piece of toast or something … no that was too easy … he had to upset the entire household.
I know now after seeing the same behavior in myself that it had nothing to do with the milk, just like it had nothing to do with the margarine. It was a sickness … one that I was passing down to my own children … I was well aware, yet I still refused to do anything about it.
Excuses.
I had a reason for everything.
I’m not getting help because I’m not a failure. I’ll be fine … it’ll go away. I’m not going on medication because I don’t need a crutch! And to hell with gaining any ten or twenty pounds by popping the pills either. Ain’t happening. Instead I chose to make my family walk on egg shells. Instead I chose to stop caring about my health … Instead I chose to put myself at the very bottom of the list.
I was and I still am stubborn.
Thankfully, there is a voice of reason in my life. A voice that knew how I felt … someone who had been where I was … someone who had made his way through the darkness … someone who said, “you don’t have to live this way and the only thing on my wish list is for you to get help.”
I felt like I was giving in … succumbing to failure … and making that phone call was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.
I thought for sure I was making a huge mistake. The doctor would put me on medication and that would be the end of me. I’d be a fat emotionless entity who drifted through the rest of her life wishing she could just be ‘like everyone else’.
I was given medication … my doctor said, “if you couldn’t see very well, would you not want to wear glasses?” … I filled the prescription … then I made my second mistake and scoured the depression forums like a mad woman trying to find out what was to become of me. The best advice I could ever give a person who’s never taken an SSRI is to stay the hell away from those forums. STAY AWAY. They will scare the living crap out of you.
I took the medication.
Slowly and surely each day was a little brighter. Each day, life became less hectic in my head. I could think … I could breathe and most importantly, I stopped bringing misery to the lives of those nearest and dearest to me.
Today I’m happy … I’m not fat, I didn’t gain the seven thousand pounds I was certain of gaining … I wake up every morning without that nagging rage. If I see a dirty coffee mug sitting on the table, I don’t start the next great war … nor have I lost my ability to emote.
I was wrong about getting help … I couldn’t have been more wrong if I tried.
It hurts me to see people who feel the helplessness that I felt.
You don’t have to live that way …
you really don’t.
by Band Back Together | Oct 14, 2010 | Abuse, Alcohol Addiction, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Intimate Partner Rape, Rape/Sexual Assault |
It’s your 27th birthday today. All day today, everything I signed and dated put knots in my stomach.
This is the first time in three years that I am not bending to your will.
The first birthday of yours that we spent together was the first time I felt truly afraid of you. It was the first time you made it entirely clear what you were capable of and willing to do to me.
I was to start my first post-college job that day. The night before you got drunk. You were throwing things, making degrading jokes, grabbing at me and my clothes, and cutting me down to size. You made it clear that I was worthless and that the job I was to start as a social worker was pointless.
That I had no worth…to society or to you.
After you destroyed our living room and kitchen, you began throwing beer cans and blasting your racist music. You kept me awake until three in the morning with the noise. Besides, I was too afraid to sleep and leave you unattended in the house. You came upstairs and realized that I was still awake. I tried to explain to you that I needed to sleep which you thought that was funny. You said that I had kept you up many a night when you had to work and that I would be fine.
You then proceeded to “do” what you wanted. After my first day, I came home and surprised you with a cake and a card. You thought they were both bullshit. You wanted booze instead. You did not ask about my day. Instead, you sent me a text in the middle of the day to pick up alcohol for you.
Now we’re done. So entirely done. And I still have moments where I feel worthless, useless, and unable to ever love or be loved again. I don’t trust men. I don’t like being touched. I have a hard time eating, sleeping is impossible, and romance makes me so angry.
My emotions are raw and I feel like I’m trying to swim out of the center of a lake. I can see myself on the shore but it takes one stroke at a time to get there.
Now you’ve moved on to another woman. I’m relieved that it’s no longer me that is the center of your “affections.” I’m hurt that it was so easy for you to move on when I’m stuck. I still hurt and rage and ache.
I didn’t expect today to be so hard. After all, it’s YOUR day, not mine. But I’m proud because I made it through. I’ll keep swimming back to myself and away from the sinking pit that you pulled me into.
I’ll find myself.
I will heal.
by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2010 | Abandonment, Anger, Blended Families, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Divorce, Estrangement, Grief, Guilt, Loneliness, Loss, Psychological Manipulation, Sadness, Self Loathing, Sociopathy |
I’ve never written for a blog. I mean, I tweet, but to share something so insanely personal? I can’t believe I’m doing this…but then hell, the guy with one ball had the courage to tell his story, so surely I can muster up the courage to tell mine! Single-jingle, you’ve inspired me! Well, okay, that’s a half-truth. Aunt Becky inspires me too; and can I say that I secretly want to be her when I grow up? (ed note: *blushes*)
I know you may be shocked with the title of this. I mean, come on, what parent would ever admit that they would give back their precious little heathens?
I am an eternal optimist. My glass is always almost-full & I can always find something positive in every person and situation. I am the oldest of six children, raised in a home that cherishes family. My parents are both alive and still married. My mother’s parents were married for 68 years and they raised eighteen children. My grandmother died first and when she did, my dear grandfather told me that he would die from a broken heart; and he did, six weeks later.
So, when my ex-husband (the charmer that he is) and I divorced almost nine years ago I was the second one in my mother’s entire family to divorce. As painful as the divorce was, little did I know that I would experience a pain so great, and so severe, that it would cause me to question my very existence.
My ex told me on 9-11 that he wanted a divorce; that he had never loved me. Great, gee thanks you asshole. He was psychologically and verbally abusive for most of our marriage. He wasn’t like that when we dated, or even for the first two years that we were married.
Honestly, it was as if a light-switch had been flipped the day we brought our daughter home from the hospital. He was angry with me because I was giving our newborn too much attention. WHAT?!? Are you fucking serious?? Yes, he was. That started the downward spiral of our marriage. He would tell me to do something, but when I did what he asked, he yelled at me because I either didn’t do it exactly as he thought I should, or he denied ever asking me to do it in the first place. In a nutshell, he expected me to play ball but kept changing the rules of the game without telling me.
I decided that I didn’t want our daughter thinking that our marriage was the example she should use as a basis for her future relationships. I knew our marriage wouldn’t last, but I had to wait for the right time. During our separation we worked with a child psychologist negotiating our co-parenting plan. Afterward, the psychologist told me that she believed that he was a sociopath. Perfect…and I have a child with this guy.
The first three years after we were divorced weren’t bad. We actually got along well and cooperated. Don’t get me wrong – the guy was still an asshole and thought he could/should control me, but I guess he was just less of an asshole. Well, that lasted until he met and married his current wife. Now, I’m not blaming her, but she certainly hasn’t told him to straighten his shit up. In fact, I believe that the two of them feed off one another.
You see, as parents, we all know that kids naturally try to pit us against one another, right? Well, it can be even worse with children of divorce. As soon as these two yahoos got together, they began telling my daughter what a terrible mother I am and how I must not love her because I don’t do this, or a I don’t do that. Step-monster has told my daughter that she thinks I’m a bitch; they both told my daughter that they think I dress funny, I’m stupid, I’m fat, I talk funny, etc…the list goes on and on.
I share this with you for you two reasons:
1.) If you’re a parent and pulling this bullshit – STOP THE SHIT NOW! You think you’re hurting your ex, but really what you’re doing is demoralizing and destroying your child. My divorce attorney said to us (before he would take my case), “it’s not divorce that screws up the kids, it’s the parents.” That was the smartest thing that man ever said.
2.) When I divorced, I made a promise to my daughter that she would never know exactly how I feel about her father; that while I may not agree with what he does, what he says, or how he lives his life, I would demand that she respect him as her father. I’m not perfect but I’ve done a pretty good job of this. I think I’ve called him an asshole a couple of times, immediately realized what I had done and asked her for her forgiveness.
Last July, after picking up my 13-year old daughter from an extended weekend with her father and step-family, she got angry with me and became belligerent and uncontrollable on our way home. I will say right here that I believe in corporal punishment, but only when it’s used sparingly. There are just some kids that need a good swat on the behind – mine being one of them.
So, I did what many parents have done and will continue to do and that was to swat (there IS a difference between a swat, a spanking, and a beating) her.
It was done to get her attention and only after I had pulled over on the side of the road in an effort to calm her down and talk through why she was so angry. I swatted her on the leg – she was wearing shorts – there was no redness, no mark, no nothing. That night she was hugs & kisses begging to do ‘girls night’ (girls night consists of us hanging out doing whatever she wants to do & always ends up with us giggling and snuggling in bed).
The next day she went back to her dad’s and thus began my personal journey in hell.
My beautiful, precious daughter accused me of beating her. Yes, beating her. I’ve never even kicked a dog, how could I beat my child? I may have had visions of killing severely maiming my ex, but I could never intentionally harm my child. Because my ex never questions anything that our daughter says and wants so badly to believe that I am the bitch that has made his life hell (it couldn’t possibly be because HE’S made his life what it is today), he believed her and hot-lined me.
Then, he took her to a therapist (which may just be the smartest thing the asshole ever did), and the therapist hot-lined me. It was at this point that I suddenly realized that if my daughter was so willing to make these false accusations against me, what would she say about my husband, her step-father? I emailed her father and suggested that until our daughter have several therapy sessions and we figure out what’s going on, that I thought it best that she stay with him. And there she has remained.
Working with the division of family services, or children’s division (whatever clever name your state has given it), is akin to having your annual exam (ladies) and inviting everyone in to see your vagina. They invade every freaking part of your life. Fortunately for me, the caseworker I was assigned to work with was thoughtful and compassionate.
I spoke with her on the phone and she explained to me that I was being accused of physically abusing my daughter. I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach. I wanted to vomit. How could the child I so dearly love and would give my very life for say such monstrous things?
The only logical, rational reason I could come up with was that she was being influenced by her father and step-monster.
The case worker then proceeded to tell me that after her interview with my daughter and her father, she had decided not to interview me. Her conclusion: “This is not a case of abuse or neglect, but a custody issue and I am closing the case.” Thank God – what a relief!
My hell isn’t over. I haven’t seen or talked to my daughter in over three months. While I retain joint physical and legal custody of my daughter, I don’t want her here if she doesn’t want to be here. Do you know the story of Solomon? If not, look it up…you’ll understand me.
So, why do I not want to be a mother?
The pain I have experienced over the last three months is so intense that there are many, many days that I just don’t feel like I can go on. I have been rejected. Repudiated by my own daughter. She won’t return my calls; won’t respond to texts or emails; won’t have anything to do with me. I sit down every Sunday and hand-write her a letter updating her on what’s happening in our family. I tell her about Buddy, the family dog she left behind and how he lays down in front of her door almost every day waiting for her to come home; I tell her about her new cousin Ainsley that has a hemangioma on her eyelid and may go blind; I tell her that all of her aunts, uncles and cousins ask about her every time I see them. I also tell her that we love her and miss her.
What I don’t tell her about is the intense sadness and pain my husband and I have inside as a result of what’s been happening. I struggle most days just to get out of bed. I don’t want to go to work, I don’t want to do the things I used to love doing, I just don’t want to do anything, or be anywhere. I cried everyday for two months. There are still days when all I do is sit with a box of Kleenex and cry all day. Seriously. All day. I hate coming home – because it reminds me of her. But where else would I go? Dying seems like an attractive alternative sometimes, but then I realize that would give my ex too much pleasure. Fuck him.
I don’t want to write to her anymore. In fact, I don’t want to be a mother anymore. There’s just too much heartache and pain. Where the hell is the reward? She doesn’t respond to any of my communications, so why keep up the charade?
Through this experience I am learning what it truly means to love another human being. To be able to look past the faults of another and still love them with all your heart and soul is an incredible place to be. I’m also learning what it means to forgive. Not to just say “I forgive you,” but to really feel it in your heart.
Wait, wait, wait a minute! I’m not forgiving that son-of-a-bitch father of hers, not sure that I will ever be at a point where I can forgive him for what he’s doing to her. I’m working on forgiving her. I realize that this isn’t all her…she’s torn. She is a true ‘daddy’s girl’ and adores her father. However, she needs to bear some responsibility in this. I have to believe that as she grows and matures she’ll realize what she’s done and she’ll be embarrassed and will regret her actions.
I’ve also learned that to be rejected by one’s child is perhaps one of the most painful experiences, other than the death of a child, that a parent can ever experience. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. I tried that…there’s this guy that I really can’t stand, yet I pray that he never experiences the pain and agony I live with every day.
What do I say when people ask how my daughter is; how is she liking the 8th grade; how is she doing in school; what sports is she playing this year? Uh, hell if I know. Call her father. I’ve moved all of her pictures from public viewing at home – it’s just too painful. I put away all of her personal belongings in her bathroom and have redecorated it…again, too painful to see her stuff. Her bedroom door is closed and I haven’t been in there for two months. Too painful. When I go in there I am reminded of all of the love and the fun that we shared together. I am also reminded that she’s not here.
For all you out there that are divorced with children, please let this be an example of what NOT to do and remember what my attorney said, “it’s not divorce that screws up the kids, it’s the parents.” Your children deserve the best of what you have and that includes treating your ex with kindness, compassion, and respect.
I will see her for the first time next week in a joint therapy session. I’m sure it’s going to be awkward and I expect her to be cold and distant. I am going to do my best not to cry. I’m going in armed with drugs. Buspar and I have become very close friends in the last couple of months.
In my heart, my hope is that next week will be the beginning of the end of my personal journey to hell.
